How to Kill a Time Lord
by Jimmy Collins
Summary: Russ is a man with a dream: to outsmart and catch the man who killed his father.  The only trouble is, the Doctor isn't easily outsmarted, and Russ may be stuck in a game of high stakes speed chess where losing is equated with death.  OC
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is my first major project, so please give me lots of helpful reviews. And, don't worry, the Doctor shows up a lot more later on. **

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><p>My mother always used to tell me a story when I asked her why the other kids had fathers, and I didn't. Most other parents would say something like "Oh, Daddy's in a different place" or "Daddy's not here right now" but Mom never went that route.<p>

She'd fix me a glass of sweet water, and sit down and pat the pillows beside her, and tell me about my father and a very brave man from another world who fell out of the sky one day in a flash of fire and sound. He was a warrior and a man of peace, a defeater of nightmares. The stories were endless. Together, my father and this strange healer outwitted demons, fought monsters, and saved villages. Daddy had only spent a year like this, but the stories were enough to fill decades.

Then I learned from the other kids that really, all that had happened was my father wandered out into the woods and something exploded. But I knew what really happened, and I told them so.

That's why I don't have any friends.

So, I grew up and got bored. I had some dead-end job, a terrible thing for someone like me, someone who grew up on tales of adventure. One day, though, I found the book.

It was a book of legend, badly written and obscure. Most of it was useless, but the key, the scratch of insight, lay in a single footnote, mentioned in passing. So, I began to read.

I visited the great libraries, universities, and centres of knowledge. I sought out book after book, interviewed person after person. Most was useless. I began to run out of money: I took a job dusting shelves and cataloguing books. It was backbreaking and dreary, but it didn't matter. I had to have the information, for knowledge is power.

One day, I found it. Everything about this traveller was variable, which was the key. So, I went back to older works, ones I'd scanned again and again and sometimes I found nothing. But, _he was there!_ It was difficult to discern, but behind a few of the major events I could find traces. And slowly, slowly, I began to piece it together.

This man had abilities and weaknesses. He had mannerisms and methods. He was variable, fluid, erratic, spontaneous, to be sure, but he was, after a fashion, predictable. Oh, I was lucky, I see that now. I had to be at the right place at the right time, and there was so much information that I had likely missed, information that meant the difference between life and death, but given what I had, I began to formulate a plan.

My first rule was "know thine enemy". And, after a fact, I did know him. Or, rather, I knew him about as well as I could. I would have to be careful, oh so very careful. I would have to be meticulous to a fault, and my plan depended heavily on surprise. This man was clearly much, much more intelligent than I, and far more resourceful. I had no hope of outwitting him. However, it is possible to play a very careful game of chess against a better opponent, and win if he doesn't realize he's playing.

But, all through the half-obscure trails and dead-end nonmentions of my quarry, there was a name, always a name, constantly haunting through the trails. And so, I decided that must be my first target. So, I set my sights there. At last, I had a place to start.

Earth.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Special thanks to all of the reviewers (Yes, I know there were only two of you). Expect slower updates once school happens. **

**Oh, and, Disclaimer: (since I forgot it earlier). As if you didn't guess, but I do not own any of the following: Doctor Who, any Doctor Who characters, including the Tenth Doctor and any companions he may or may not have at this time (actually, that number is zero, for this Doctor is from around the time of Planet of the Dead, but certainly before Waters of Mars), space ships in general, aliens, either of the Houses (Lords, Commons), the Prime Minister himself (the one featured here is my own invention, so I DO own him, mwahahaha), scientists in general, handheld computers (I wish I owned one), or sarcasm, though that last one is debatable. **

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><p>Static.<p>

Then, a face. There were distortions, so mostly all you could see were the eyes. Their owner had belonged to some faraway desert-dwelling race. They were flat black, with no trace of white, iris, or pupil. It was like their owner had sunglasses on under his skin, which made it very difficult to see where he was looking.

"People of Earth," it began, then paused. The figures watching it in darkness did not smile at the cliché.

"I find no need to address you. However, it is proper," the figure smiled sardonically, revealing pointed teeth "procedure," he loaded the word with sarcasm, "to send a message in this manner. My ship will decimate the regions whose coordinate systems I am sending to you now. A few of them, you may note, are highly populated. Out of common courtesy, we shall begin with the less populated areas of your planet, starting with the location in the midst of your oceans. However, our calculations show that, by the time we are finished, increased seismic activity and the existence of large dust clouds in your air and water will soon make your planet unlivable. You may do with this information what you like. You cannot stop us, and we will accept no terms."

There was static, and then the message repeated.

After a pause, one of the figures spoke. "What should we do?"

"None of our weapons can harm it? Do we even know what's inside the thing?"

"No. The hull is made of some material that reflects everything we can throw at it. We can't even get thermal. And, you know what the Americans did…"

He did. They both did. A copy of the video had been sent to Washington, and New York was one of the targets. A few hours later, several nuclear missiles had been launched. The Ship hadn't been scratched, and had retaliated by detonating some sort of remote EMP all across the Eastern Seaboard.

The second figure, a tall man in a dark blue suit and silvering hair, sighed and asked "How long has it been up there, anyways?"

The first, a shorter, balding, worried looking man with a pinched nose, consulted some sort of handheld computer. "Nine days ago, it just started hovering about two thousand metres above London. This morning, it sends us this, and fires some sort of energy weapon into the Atlantic."

The taller man pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why do these things always happen to us?" He whirled upon the shorter man suddenly. "Why now? It waits eight days, ignores all attempts to communicate, and suddenly it sends us this message?" He swiped his companion's computer from him suddenly. "What's on the hit list? The Atlantic Ocean, Northern Russia, New York, the South Pacific, London, _London!_ What do all these have in common?"

"We're working –"

"Work faster! And then… and then…"

"Prime Minister, I don't think you quite understand. We are working as fast as we can. And we've pulled all the strings on this one. Agencies that don't even officially exist are working on this, and we haven't found a solution. The people are looking to you to know what's going on. _What do we do?_"

The Minister looked at a loss, then picked out the few words he could do something about.

"Agencies that don't even officially exist?"

The smaller man sighed. "Yes. We have them. They don't officially exist. You don't know about them. Now, Minister, please – "

"What agencies that don't officially exist? I'm the bloody Prime Minister. I have the highest security clearance in the country."

"I'll tell you all about them later. I ask again: _what do we do?_"

The minister was silent.

Then, a new voice spoke up. "Well, you could always ask me."

Both men whirled around. The newcomer was tall and stick-thin, wearing a brown pinstriped suit. He nonchalantly pulled a pair of glasses out of his breast pocket, and put them on.

"_How did he get in here?_"

The shorter man turned red. "I… ah… he… well…" He finally decided to try to make himself as small and unnoticible as possible. The newcomer tilted his head lazily. "Weeeeeeell," he began, "I _was_ going to, you know, help out, but now that you're getting all shouty and 'how did he get in here'-y, I think I won't."

"Stevens, how did this man get in here?" The Minister was a large man, though not a fat one. He looked big simply because his voice and personality could never be contained in a smaller body. He always either looked grave, or friendly, the sort of man you'd expect would begin every one of his sentences with 'My Dear, Dear Friends,' because all of you really _were_ his dear, dear friends. Anger was not an emotion one associated with him, and it took most people, like Stevens, a moment like this to realize that he really _was_ much, much bigger in a bit of a threatening way, and could probably do lots more damage.

Stevens cowered and turned an even brighter shade of red. "'s spesh'list," he managed.

"_What?_"

"Oh, come off it," said the 'spesh'list'. "What our friend Stevens means to say is, I'm a very important and rather dashing person who knows what to do when there's a big bloody spaceship hanging over London and threatening to destroy the world. I'm the Doctor." He held out his hand.

The Minister paused. You could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He shook the Doctor's hand absentmindedly, then asked "Christmas?"

"Yeah, that was me."

"Er, wait right there. I need to speak with my aide."

He turned to Stevens and hissed "Who is this man?"

Stevens' face had by now lessened in hue, like those spoons that change colour when dipped in ice cream, and slowly fade back to their original shade when left sitting out. He swallowed. "Remember those agencies I told you about? The ones that don't officially exist? Well, he's sort of…"

The Minister turned around suddenly, all smiles. He shook the Doctor's hand warmly. "Well, Doctor, is it? Doctor who?"

"Just 'the Doctor'."

"Well, Doctor, what can you make of this?"

As if that had been some sort of strange signal the man had been waiting for, the Doctor suddenly snapped into action.

He fairly bounded over to the screen, pulling out a small, thin, blue-tipped instrument as he went. "Oh, here we go, message, la-de-da, oh, look at that, a map." The computer responded to his strange tool as if it were trying to be helpful. "Love maps, me. And, oh, look! All these locations have deposits of industrial grade olivine!" He turned to the two stunned men. "All right, give me an order of fish and chips, a sword, and, say, thirty minutes. Oh, say, an hour, just to be on the safe side. You never know just _when_ you'll need to duel a Sycorax on the go. You know what? Pass on the sword, and make that _two _orders of fish and chips. Allons-y!"

And with that, he was gone.

The two men looked at each other. "Stevens, just who _is_ this man?"

Stevens grinned. Because his face was so round, and because he had virtually no chin, the effect was rather like looking at a baboon's face. "Sir? You'd better go and get someone to start working on your victory speech."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: As you have now probably noticed (and if you haven't noticed, I'm just paranoid) I tend to go and edit my works a lot. The last chapter was sort of funny, and this one is meant to be kind of interestingly funny, too. When I read it, it's not funny at all, though, because I wrote it and I know what all the punch-lines are. So, let me know what you think. **

**Also, treasure these funny parts. It gets sort of more dramatic and not funny later. **

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><p>The second guessing was the worst part. You aren't ever sure if you are making the right decision, and every misstep means death.<p>

And that's not even counting in the fact that there Was Not a Plan. I mean, it was more dangerous that way. If there was a plan, he could probably figure out what it was, and then everything would come crashing down. Actually, _everyone_ involved could figure out what I was really, really trying to do, and that it wasn't necessarily in their own best interests, only in mine. And it would, yes, come crashing down. So, no, I had no idea what I was doing.

Or, rather, I only had ideas. There was a goal, and a series of separated ideas and thoughts. It was more like improvising than I was comfortable with. Only, ideas are tricky things to work with. I need visuals and instructions and nice, colourful charts to think really clearly. So I made do with the paper.

And, of course, there was the fact that I was standing on the bloody great spaceship that was threatening Earth. If there ever was a sore spot for the Doctor, according to what I'd read, it was Earth. Was I ready? Was everything in place?

Oh, god. If I could, I would back out now.

And then I heard the noise.

I mean, yeah, I'd read about that noise, read descriptions and such, but it's nothing to actually hearing it. It was the noise of a tearing hull in deep space, or a dripping, spraying sound in a deep submarine, or the sound of a thousand eyes staring at you when you're deep in the jungle. It was the sound that accompanies that greatest and best of sentences: "Nothing can go wrong now."

I like to think it's Fate playing a harmonica in Hell.

"Vworp… Vworp… Vworp… Vwooorp… shunk"

And then there He was, all over the place like some sort of hyperactive child. His hair was rather spikey, and his suit was brown and striped. He was inordinately tall, and his eyes had that strange patterning to them: dark brown spots in the middle of a sea of white that jerked all about. It was a bit disconcerting to watch.

And he was babbling, jumping all about the ship like a toddler in a toy store, eye-dots flying all over the place. "Well, look at this! You're using the hyperspatial feedback to induce a gravitational cascade in the surrounding spacetime! So, you're moving, only not really because it's only the space that's bending, and therefore, acceleration is zero. Brilliant! And what's this? Is this _really_ a Beryllic circuit here? How quaint! I haven't seen these in absolute _ages_." And so on.

Then, he proceeded to tear through all my computer security within a few seconds. Really, I shouldn't have expected less. "What's this? Why have you got a protein map? Well, aside from the obvious answer that you want to map a protein. Hey, it really _is_ olivine you're looking for. But why… oh, you want to use it in the manufacture of xylium. Hmmm, looks like some spatial converters here, too. What… Hey, you want to build a space-time portal!"

That was bad. I'd hoped he wouldn't be so quick. But… maybe I could make it work for me. Bait the hook, so to speak.

So, I coughed.

"Ahem," I began. According to the Earth media I'd been watching, this was the standard way to catch someone's attention.

It didn't work.

"A_hem_" I reiterated. He still wouldn't be deterred.

"Looks like you're trying to… I haven't seen this sort of design in a while… temporal capacitors would blow without a-"

I cut the power. There was a handy little switch beneath my panel, one that I'd had the foresight, knowing my enemy, to install. Ha-_ha!_ I allowed myself a little victory smile, but only on the inside. It does not do to laugh at the world-shattering ancient Oncoming Storm.

The Doctor turned around. "What did you have to do that fo-"

He stopped talking abruptly Five different guards sticking their guns in your face can do that to you.

"Right then. Down to business," he said. That probably wasn't the first time those words were spoken at gunpoint, but it can't have been an everyday occurrence. "But first," he continued, "No guns. I can't stand guns in my face when I'm trying to talk."

The guards looked at me uncertainly. I nodded. The guns were lowered.

"That's a level five civilization down there. According to every law in the galaxy, what you're doing is illegal. You can't just destroy a whole planet."

"Well, technically, we're not destroying it," I began, but he cut me off.

"All right, then," he began, and spoke in a low and dangerous voice. He walked right up to me, so that I had to crane my neck to see him. He had nearly half my height on me – my species doesn't tend to grow very tall. "I'll put it this way. Leave this planet. Leave it alone, and get your industrial grade olivine somewhere else. It's hardly uncommon."

I didn't want to say it, but it had to be said. "Or what?"

"Or I'll stop you."

There was a pause filled with dead silence. You could have heard a hair drop to the ground.

"Ok."

He looked taken aback. "What?"

"I said, ok. We'll leave." I flicked the switch under my panel, and the computer powered back to life. "Computer," I said, "Cease mining activities. Initiate engine starting procedure."

"What, just like that?"

"Would you prefer I stayed and you killed me in a horrible way? Retract planetary thrusters, heat screens on."

"That's hardly fair!" he protested. "I do _not_ kill pe-"

"We're _leaving_, Doctor. I apologize for any inconvenience to this planet, but we no longer pose a threat to you or to the Earth. And, as Captain, I'm ordering you to get off my ship."

I glared at him and stood on my toes, but still couldn't manage to get much higher than his collar, so I don't think it was exactly intimidating. Collar glares don't count for much, on any planet.

His unnerving little eyes flicked over to mine. He raised an eyebrow.

"Right, then. Thanks for taking this so well…" He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably, and then went back to his space-time ship, muttering to himself under his breath. It disappeared with a discordant series of pulsing sounds.

"Vwooorp, Vworp, vworp, vworp, sheeooork, seeoooorrrkkk" It faded away with a high pitched wine.

This time, it didn't sound like the ominous sound of a cruel god laughing. This time, it was the sound of something irrevocably starting, of the pieces being placed on the board. I'd been quite interested in the Earth game Chess. There's nothing like it back where I come from. But here, the pieces set up, but which were which?

I watched the last traces of his TARDIS dematerialize, and wondered if I'd made the right move. Oh well. That was the way the game worked. So many powerful pieces, each trying their hardest to capture and protect the weakest piece on the board. And so many different moves –each changing the board so that it can never go back. I liked to think I was the Queen: powerful, important, and good at what it did, but in reality, I was probably more like either a pawn, or a king. I was some weak piece, one that can't do a whole lot. But pawns have an annoying tendency to slide about unnoticed and maneovre themselves into the perfect positions. I'd just gotten myself noticed, so I hoped I was the king. It didn't matter. I'd placed my piece. Let's see what kind of a game I'd get.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: This chapter is very short, so I suppose I could see my own way clear to posting a second chapter. Also, I'd like to thank all my kind reviewers with as much sincerity as I can muster. Now, go off and tell me what you're thinking!**

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><p>He'd walked into the TARDIS with his left eyebrow frozen a few centimetres above his right. That had been… strange. And, so, he'd dematerialised his ship almost absentmindedly, flipping switches and diving for buttons across the console without really thinking about it.<p>

The short little alien had come to Earth for olivine, of all things. And, from the looks of it, he was trying to build a sort of portal – a rip in spacetime, only without all the unpredictability that a raw edge held.

Why?

There were many easier ways to create a spacetime rip. A wormhole, for one thing, though that couldn't be stored on the surface of a planet. But, if the creature had a spaceship, why did that matter? Where did he want to go?

And why had there been a protein map? It looked like some sort of enzyme. Actually, it looked remarkably like an enzyme, a very familiar one, too, only it was difficult to recognise because it had been twisted, almost as if there was something inhibiting the…

Something inhibiting…

The Doctor yanked a lever and was thrown across the room as the TARDIS shifted into high reverse. Oh, dear. There had been a reason why the little alien was so ready to leave when he'd glared at him.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: When, in the course of reading my documents and such, it suddenly came to me that I'd forgotten to really introduce one of my more important OCs. And that's why it Always Does to Edit. Really. If I'd had a Beta... person, and if said Beta reader (argh, it's called a Beta reader... I forgot that, and I'm not going to edit 'Beta *ellipse* person, am I? Because I'm lazy.) were worth the effort, he/she'd catch this sort of thing and set me straight in no time flat. Alas...**

**So, that's the purpose of the first section of this. The rest is more humor, and points go to the reviewer who manages to determine what short story format I'm borrowing plot structure from (and quite a wonderful short story it is, too!). How's this: I'll draw something for you - you get to decide what it is, within reason - and I'll scan it and send you a link to my Deviantart account. There. **

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><p>Russ was small by Earth standards, with rather big pointed ears. They weren't the sort of pointed ears that made one think of an elf or any sort of thing like that: they were too thin for one thing: one could almost see the blood pumping through tiny vessels. They were more like the ears of some sort of rodent, or perhaps a canine, ears with a slight tip rather far back on his head. He also had disproportionally large hands and long, thin, nimble fingers. He wore short, sandy hair and had a matching complexion, with thin, almost feminine eyebrows and large eyes devoid of white or iris. This made it very hard to see where he was looking.<p>

He had strong, quick legs that gave him the air of a deer about to run or a bird on the instant before flight. He was graceful, in his own, strange, large-eared and disconcerting way. It was he who had captained the ship that invaded Earth, and it was he who had given the order to retreat in the face of the Doctor.

The other crewmen hadn't liked this, but they had seen Captain Russ's face when he'd told them to take off. It was terrified and confident and terrifying at the same time, so they did not question him.

Russ hadn't been in an entirely rational frame of mind while the ship left. He went and hid in his small quarters, locked the door, and sat against the wall with a handgun pointed jerkily first at the door, then at the air vent, then at the floor, all the while drawing shakily with his other hand. Russ was ambidextrous, and he needed to draw sometimes to get his thoughts out. But now, his drawings were incomprehensible as his thoughts.

He scratched out several symbols on the thin paper. Russ wrote here and now in the high language, which could be equated to a strange sort of calligraphy, if calligraphy had been invented that looked like clouds and the shape of the wind. His words were large and extravagant, with many swoops and curls and lines of varried thickness. Puffy, fat cumulus symbols floated alongside thinner, streakier lines. But, the symbols were also rather messy, for the pen that scratched them out did so rather quickly, which rather defeats the purpose of calligraphy.

Here, a symbol, perhaps meaning 'ally' and there, a symbol, 'home'. 'Enemy' was highlighted by several dark lines scratched underneath, and several lines connected it to 'ally'. 'Fear'. Oh, several lines connected 'Fear' to nearly every other symbol on the page. 'Shuttle Transport.' 'Decoy.' 'Lost.' 'Sun.' Even 'Ice'.

'Ice' connected to 'Fear' quite strongly, but this was mostly a species thing. Russ was a Kelian, and Kelians don't do well in the cold.

Separated from the other words, and unconnected to the other thoughts, was the symbol for 'Doctor', though, given the strange inflections and idiosyncrasies of the Kelian language, would probably be closer to 'Healer' or even 'Helper.' In the harsh deserts of Kel, a healer is always welcome.

Papers shifted across the room as the pilot executed a slight turn. Russ was normally quite neat – again, another species thing – but there really wasn't anywhere to store the papers except on the floor. One had to quite literally wade through them to get to the simple bunk.

Russ liked to use this time to think. He kept expecting the great police box to appear beside him and the Doctor to step out, all triumphant, and… well… do something Russ hadn't expected.

But, there were the Ideas. He searched through them, trying to find if he'd had any ideas about how to keep the Doctor from finding him. That was the bad part of not having a plan: with just a collection of ideas, it's difficult to see if you've forgotten something.

_He's on my trail. He's on my trail, and there's nothing I can do. He can move faster than this ship could ever hope, and he can travel through time. He's on my trail…_

_So, give him a trail to follow._

Russ risked a quick stop to Kel, to unload his shipment of olivine (of course, he'd already had olivine. He'd actually had a bit of gem quality olivine: the shining green mineral commonly called peridot. The Earth thing was just a complicated ruse) and set up a few things, then ordered the ship to stop at a spaceport, and sold it. Then, he spent the next few days executing a complicated series of location changes. He bought new ships, then sold them. He stowed away. He took transports. Surely, not even the devil himself could follow.

One day, satisfied, he sat in some diner. He got the window seat, and he had a bit of money, so he ordered something moderately expensive to celebrate.

"Hallo, is this seat taken?"

Russ jumped. There he was, in all his pinstriped glory. It was the Doctor. Taking his quarry's silence for a 'yes,' the Doctor sat. "I want to talk to you about enzymes."

The little humanoid looked into the larger man's face. It held no malevolence, simply a questioning stare.

Russ fled.

"Blimey," said the Doctor.

Russ almost took the first transport out of there, but then thought better of it. He looked around and saw a girl playing with her handheld holo-game.

"Hey, kid," he hissed.

She looked up.

"Er, do you really need that holo-game?"

She hugged it to her chest protectively. Russ sighed.

A couple hundred credits poorer, Russ ran to the nearest transport shuttle, cradling the game like it was the Key to Time itself. _What would I do if I were the Doctor trying to hunt me down? _

_No, scratch that. What would I actually do, because he's sure to figure that out. _

_No, scratch that. What would I do, then decide not to do because he'd figure it out, then actually do? _

_No, no, no. He knows I know. That's the problem. And he probably knows that I know he knows I know. _

_What would I do if I didn't know the Doctor knows I know what I'm going to do? Surely, he knows I know, and I know he knows I know, but does he know I know he knows I know…_

_Argh, this second guessing is giving me a migraine._

In the end, he decided on a fuel transport. He set up the holo display, cleverly set up to look exactly like him, somewhere in the cockpit. Then, he reprogrammed the computer and locked the controls.

Later, on a nice passenger liner, he sat and watched the transport fly into the sun. There.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. "All right, that was clever. I'll give you that. But I just want to talk to you about these enzymes."

Russ jerked his head upwards and met brown eyes and spiky hair and a slightly grease-smudge face. "Gaah!" he screamed. The man had some sort of magic to his command.

He ran. Along the way, he hacked into a terminal and turned off the life support. _He stops disasters, right? Please, please let this keep him busy_. Then, he set two escape pods to launch, aiming the first for the densely populated Hydrix IV and setting the reactor to critical. He entered the second and programmed it to crash land on the ice planet of Hydrix V.

This circular logic didn't really bother Russ because, frankly, he knew the Doctor could follow him anywhere. And he wasn't really thinking. Random ideas floated about in his mind, and he hoped that he could pull out another one when the Doctor showed up in the escape pod. Russ was certain the Doctor would.

_If the blue box shows up on the pod, I'll hear it coming first, right? Then, I'll hide - I'm good at that - and while he's off checking the engine room, I'll take this piece of pipe and..._

So, it came as a bit of a shock that, as he really was about to crash on the ice planet of Hydrix V, the Doctor failed to show up. He ransacked his brain for answers, for Ideas, but the only Ideas he had had to do with the Doctor. Because, erratic, brilliant, and random as the Doctor was, he was also imminently predictable. And Russ hadn't thought that the Doctor would just let him go.

Apparently he would. Russ got into the safety harness and prepared for impact.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: This is about the point where the story suffers from a massive attack of Cerberus Syndrome. I mean, I suppose it's still likely to be a little funny after this bit, but if you're reading it for the humor, you might want to start reading it for the plot or something. And, yes, this chaper is short, but I'd like to keep my one-chapter-a-day pacing, so I'm basically buying myself time to write more of the NEXT story. I think I'll call it something like "The Voice Stealer" or something, but no promises. And I realize that one day probably isn't going to help much, and it may be months until the next story goes up, as I don't post them until I'm nearly done. **

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><p>There were no observers on the planet Hydrix V. Perhaps there were, once, a long time ago, plants that took in the toxic atmosphere and that contributed to the oxygen-rich atmosphere, perhaps later animal life, but they all died off or left to go to warmer spheres.<p>

But, if there _had_ been an observer on Hydrix V, he would have seen something like a great commet fall from the sky, fall and crash into the icy landscape. Only it wasn't a commet.

Some minutes later, a figure could be seen crawling out. It shivered, for the air was bitterly cold.

The figure looked about, surveying the landscape. It seemed to be looking for something, but when it apparently failed to see what it was looking for, the figure exhaled, letting out a breath it had been holding. The breath hung in the air like white fog. Snow began to fall, first light flakes, then thicker, more frenzied white rain. Soon, the land blended into the sky, for both were a flat white, and nothing could be seen but the wreckage and the small, sandy-haired creature, ears flicking madly in the wind and the snow. It pressed a long-fingered hand to its spine and winced, as if some electric shock had hit it there.

Slowly, laboriously, the figure trudged across the frozen landscape. It dragged its feet more and more, as the tendrils of cold worked into the creature's bones. Only a few metres from the wreckage, it stopped, and looked around. Then, it collapsed into the new snow.

Some time passed. The sun went down, and later, by the light of the moonless night, there came a peculiar sound, though nobody can say what the sound was, as nobody was there to hear it.

A man stepped out of the blue box, the blue box that had suddenly always been there, near the wreckage. He looked around, and sniffed the air and lit it up with his strange, blue tinted flashlight, though it was much more than a flashlight. Then, he made his way over to where the first figure had collapsed, buried by the snowfall. He hefted the smaller man over his shoulder, and brought him back to the box, which disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I may be experiencing some technical difficulties, and didn't seem cooperative twenty four hours ago, so I apologise for not posting yesterday. **

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><p>Russ lay on the floor. His skin was turning a peculiar shade of blue – more like indigo, actually – and he wasn't breathing.<p>

Kelians have a rather strange anatomy. To adapt to life in deserts, where the days are boiling hot and the nights, freezing cold, they are only warm-blooded part of the time, and enter a state of hibernation every night. With the temperature brought back up to normal, Russ ought to wake right back up. Kelian blood is filled with antifreeze, and they have a series of sixteen small hearts located at various points around their bodies. The Doctor felt the underside of Russ's arm, just above his elbow, where one of the hearts was located. There wasn't any pulse.

Puzzled, he removed the Kelian's jacket, and did a quick scan with the sonic.

* * *

><p>Russ woke up with a pounding headache. "ooooh," he groaned.<p>

"Oh, hello, welcome to the land of the living."

"oooo-OOOO-oooo" he repeated.

"So," the Doctor said causally, "failed heating element in each heart, coordinated to a computer at the base of the spine. You've got something else under your liver-thing that, near as I can tell, sends out a chemical that tricks your cells into thinking they're significantly younger than they are. Brainwave coordinator, several redundant toxin filters, all of brilliant design. Wherever did you get all that?"

Russ stopped abruptly. He arched his back, shuffled into a (painful!) sitting position, and said "You scanned me" through clenched teeth.

"Look, shut up," said the Doctor, looking quite wounded. "You were dying. I recharged your main batteries, and this is what I get for gratitude."

If he'd felt less painful, Russ would have laughed. The Doctor, ancient that he was, sounded like a petulant child. So, he settled for sighing.

"How old do you think I am?"

The Doctor blinked. It felt as if the conversation had taken a strange U-turn on a long-abandoned road, only for the engine to stall horribly and jump out of the car, spewing black smoke all over the passengers, leaving them to stand on the side of the road waving their arms and attempting the long hitchhike back to civilization. "Er, what?"

"I said how old do you think I am?" He sighed again. "Look, never mind." He did some calculations on his fingers. "Let's use Earth years, since you seem to like them. I'm about forty-five, give or take a bit, depending on my math." He winced and twisted his neck. "I'm a Kelian. We _die_ at ten."

He paused and looked up at the Doctor. His expression was unreadable, so Russ continued in a flurry of words, hoping he didn't sound as stupid as he thought he did. "I mean, I know that doesn't sound like much to you, and anyways, we never get much in the way of technological advancement. You must think we're these tiny insignificant things. It takes time to think up things like space ships and stuff, and everyone dies before they can get it done. And we're probably not very smart, I mean, not compared to you, and so I spent my whole life just researching you and researching you, but it was never enough. I got _old_.

So, I got a little help. They kept me going. I mean, it felt weird, but they had some sort of temperature control in me, so it'd seem warm when it wasn't. I can't hibernate if it's not cold enough. I haven't slept in… years." He took a breath, and just then did it really hit him. He was tired.

"It was dumb," Russ went on, "but I needed them, because I just wanted to find you and ask you something, er, and I don't really want to ask it anymore, but the people helping me don't want me to quit, you know, I can't back out now, and it seems sort of dumb now, seeing as I've got great-great-grand nephews and such, but, you know, it was the question that started all this…" he took a deep breath and turned quite red, "Where's my dad?"

He looked down at the ground, unable to meet the Doctor's gaze.

"Oh," said the Doctor, though it was really more of a sigh. He had been about to ask about the enzymes, and about the portal, but now it just seemed sort of tacky. He gave Russ a long look. The Kelian's skin was smooth and taut, but it had a greying quality about it. His hair was full and thick, but the colour was somehow off. His eyes did not shine as they should.

"You must think it's stupid. I mean, who thinks the whole universe turns because of my dad? I mean, it might for you, but he's just my dad, and I wanted to back out, but I couldn't, and I know how stupid it is" Russ was aware that he was babbling. "I mean, I'm just so…"

"Oh, oh, oh, Russ, I'm so sorry."

"sorry." Russ stopped. "Wait, what?"

Russ dared meet the Doctor's gaze for the first time. There was no contempt in them, just sadness and the weight of the ages. Russ knew that weight, because he saw it every time he looked in a mirror. Only, here, it was multiplied a thousandfold.

And so, the Doctor began to speak. He told Russ about monsters and nightmares, and how he and Russ's father fought them, and saved their planet time and time again. He spoke until he saw the glazed look in Russ's eyes, saw his eyelids sink, and he fell unconscious. He wasn't asleep, or anything so gentle as that. The battery in his central computer must have failed again – he'd have to fix it.

He waited until he was quite sure Russ was out cold before taking his thumb off the sonic screwdriver's button and replacing it in his pocket. Then, he picked the little Kelian up, noting how little he weighed, and carried him down the familiar paths deep into the bowels of the TARDIS.

And, all the while he searched his memory for any Kelians he might have known, for the father of a strange, sandy-haired little alien who had spent his whole life looking.

He couldn't remember.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Apparently, to some people, the last chapter was a little difficult to understand, so I'll say it all explicitly now, as I'm not entirely sure what it is I need to change yet. (a) Russ doesn't actually know what happened to his father, as it's all become this strange legend to him, and (b) the Doctor is knocking him out by overloading his temperature control computer, the one that keeps him awake, so (c) it doesn't really matter what the Doctor says as long as he keeps talking, because after a certain point, Russ isn't going to understand much of what is said anyways, and therefore (d) the Doctor is making stuff up to sort of comfort Russ. I know that's a bit more of an eleventh Doctor thing than a Tenth one, but I figure, they're all the same person inside, and Ten would probably do something like that if he needed to. **

* * *

><p>The Doctor had hoped to get Russ to wherever he lived before he woke up, but apparently that was a no-go. The midday heat roused the little Kelian, who nearly tumbled out of the Doctor's arms when he woke.<p>

"Oi! Careful!"

Russ struggled. "Let me go! I'm not a spoiled child, you know," he said, looking rather a lot like a spoiled child. He beat on the Doctor's chest with his fists.

"Stop doing that!"

"_You_ stop doing that!"

Russ went boneless. He slid down through the Doctor's arms, who was by now realizing that even if the Kelian was skin and cartilage, that made him no less unwieldy. He was about the size of a young teenager.

"Look, stop it. You do not want to make me count. I will. I'll count down from five, and if you won't behave-"

"Oh, come off it. I _am_ forty five earth years, you know."

"Yeah? Well I'm upwards of nine hundred, so I think that gives me seniority."

"Who cares about seniority?"

"You think I like this? As I was saying, if you won't behave I'll-"

"You'll _what_? What can you do? _What can you do to me!_"

This gave the Doctor pause. "I'll... er... I'll..." Inspiration dawned. "I'll make you walk!"

"Oh is _that_ all? Make me walk then. It's been what I've been trying to do since I woke up! LET ME WALK!" he screamed.

The Doctor dropped Russ, who landed in the sand looking a little surprised.

"Fine," he said, and continued walking.

Russ struggled to his feet, and then collapsed again.

"Doctor?" he said.

The brown suited figure continued, unconcerned.

Russ muttered something under his breath and struggled to his feet. They were shaky, but if he concentrated very hard, he could stay upright. And, anyways, he was damned if he would ask the Doctor for help again.

The Doctor continued across the sand. Villages move in this ever-shifting landscape, so he'd landed his TARDIS a couple hundred metres away. It didn't matter. He could see it, just a little ways ahead, through the heat blur. The sun beat down painfully.

Behind him, he heard the call. "Doctor?"

Well, let the ungrateful little creature call him. He'd offered to carry Russ all the way to the village, and he wasn't going to offer again.

"Doctor!"

It had been a while, and Russ was probably getting a little steadier on his feet. From the sound of it, he had managed a slow run.

"Doctor!"

He felt a tug on his jacket. Russ was walking alongside him. The heat really was brutal, but he wasn't going to take off his outer layers if Russ, clothed as he was in his little black jacket, didn't. "What?" he growled.

"You're going the wrong way. The heat bends light. The village is really that way," he pointed some sixty degrees off to the right. The Doctor abruptly changed course.

There was a pause, then the Doctor heard Russ mumble something.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No, really, what?"

"Really, nothing."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"All right, fine. I said 'you're welcome.'"

"For what? I knew where I was going."

There was a silence.

"Really! I did."

More silence.

"All right, all right, fine. You were helpful. Happy now?"

There was a slight pause, then Russ said "Can you say that again?"

"What?"

"Say that again. That I was helpful."

"No!"

"That you couldn't get through this without me. Say it."

"I most certainly will not!"

"Come on, you know I deserve it."

"You deserve no such thing."

Russ smiled. The Doctor looked over at him, and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards. Suddenly, they were both smiling, laughing uncontrollably. The desert rang with mirth.

The Doctor wiped some of the sweat off his face. "I'm still not saying it," he told Russ. Russ didn't mind. He simply rubbed the sweat off the back of his neck and smiled.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Yes! It took an incredible feet of heroism, but I've done it! Over the last few days, I executed a move over to California, in America. And somehow, I _think_ I only missed a day or so with regards to updating 'Idea'. It's very difficult to keep track. I'm currently working on a new story, so that's coming soon (I may post a coming soon short one-shot intro) but I'm not sure when it'll form, as I've got a brilliant set of characters, and almost nothing in the way of plot. **

* * *

><p>Russ kept feeling along the back of his neck. That was what the Doctor later remembered. Of course, he knew about the location of each of Russ's implants, but at the time he'd assumed that Russ was experiencing some sort of electrical feedback from the one in his head, one that, as near as the Doctor could tell, was responsible for Russ's continued mental youth by coordinating certain brainwave patterns. Russ had clearly not wanted to become a senile vegetable.<p>

As they got nearer to the village, swapping stories, the Doctor noticed Russ grow silent. "What's wrong?" he asked. Russ rubbed his neck again and said "Nothing. I've just got a bit of a headache from all the light." He looked back up at the Doctor with his pure black eyes. "Takes some getting used to."

That was weak, but the Doctor let it go.

Russ led him to a small building away from the main village. "This was my workshop, you see," he explained.

The Doctor nodded and followed.

Inside the workshop was a veritable mass of cables and complex machinery. Russ had clearly tried to keep his work-space neat, but cables have a proclivity towards entanglement, and Russ was fighting entropy herself. The Doctor felt right at home. Russ sat off to one side, assembling something out of glass and plastic, left hand scribbling madly on a spare sheet of paper. He shuffled a good many glass needles, and spilled them over the floor, while the Doctor ran about, exclaiming at everything he saw. Oh, isn't this a flux capacitor? Not like in the movie, but a real flux capacitor! One that capacitates fluctuations! And look! You've built a resonant frequencies thingy!

When he was ready and had quite cleaned up the mess of glass tinkling on the floor, Russ stood up. "I want to show you something," he said softly, his expression unreadable. The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Door," Russ gestured with his head.

The Doctor ducked through the low entryway and gasped.

It was the space-time portal. Russ had actually built it.

"See, this is a place where the fabric of space-time is actually quite worn," came the voice behind him. "The thing about a time lock" Russ said slowly, "is that if you are a fourth dimensional species, I mean, really fourth dimensional - not like the rest of us who can't control or move along time - you can't really see inside of it. If you could, you'd know which wars not to actually get involved in. But, there's the instant during which the lock is sealed, and, if you're much, much cleverer than I am, and you're about to be locked, and you've got someone on the outside helping you – that's me – and you've got someone who _was_ on the inside as a sort of relative coordinate…"

"I see," said the Doctor.

"They were going to _help_ me," said Russ, almost pleadingly. But I never wanted this, not this. They really don't like you. I just need something that was inside the Lock – it doesn't have to be a time lord, and it doesn't have to be alive."

The Doctor turned slowly. Russ held a clear handgun. The rest of him was shaking almost uncontrollably, but the tip of the gun held steady. The Doctor recognized that gun. _Enzymes_, he thought.

"They sent me plans for the portal, plans for the gun. You won't regenerate. I've got you trapped," said Russ, and there was a strange edge to his speech. He gestured with the staser. "Now, go walk into the portal. Let's get you hooked up. And, you know what? I'm not sure if I'll kill you or what, so be nice and maybe I won't."

The Doctor almost went for the screwdriver. If he was fast enough -

Russ's finger tightened on the trigger. "Programmed directives in my cortex," he said. "I won't miss."

The Doctor withdrew his hand slowly, and raised his arms above his head.

"You _idiot!_" Russ snarled, circling him. "Do you know what this was like? I was so careful, and you were still on my trail. I set trap after trap, and you escaped each one. Do you understand this? I had _no idea_ how you were going to get out of any of them. Everything I threw at you, you should have failed. But I had to assume, didn't I, that you'd escape each one, that you had some sort of plan or a magic touch or something. I was never sure when you'd pop up on my doorstep, waving some clue I'd accidentally left that led you right to me. You're brilliant, aren't you? Really brilliant, in the true meaning of the word.

But this was too much, wasn't it? You never expected this. I mean, you never expected any of the other things, but here I am, and what have I got in my hand? It's a staser – the one thing that kills a time lord dead." There was a bitter, pleading edge to Russ's voice again. "If you were just a little cleverer, I would never have gotten this far. And now look at you. Too stupid to get out, too supid to escape my last trap. Look at you now: the Doctor, the last Time Lord. Trapped by dumb little Russ. You know, in my language, 'Doctor' means 'Helper'? Not helping anyone now, are we? You are pathetic. I'll be glad to kill you. _Damn you_, I say. Damn you, and my bloody father, for associating with you."

Russ was red faced and almost in tears. The Doctor looked into his merciless, jet black eyes, and saw something there. Understanding dawned.

"Oh," the Doctor began.

Russ fired.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: And I present to you: The Climax! This continues through this chapter, and through the next chapter as well. So, I suppose it's a pretty long climax. Let me know what you think. **

* * *

><p>The effect was instantaneous. The Doctor didn't even have any time to react. He simply fell down, folding up like a cherry-picker. Breathing hard, Russ ran up and felt the Time Lord's pulse.<p>

Nothing.

Russ sat down heavily by one of the walls and tried to stop hyperventilating. This was silly. Everything was going according to plan. Why was he panting so?

He took several deep breaths and swallowed hard. He shut his eyes tightly and opened them again.

_Sorry, I just never killed anyone before,_ he thought.

_Quickly, the plan can still succeed. Go now and place his body into the Harness. The subject's psychic history maintained the connection within his body. The tissue does not need to be living: the connection may still be strong enough. _

_But, what if it isn't? _

_Best not to think of that. _

_You've fulfilled both your obligations. Once you put that body into the Harness, you're free. _

_Quickly, before the connection fades. _

Russ sat and looked at his hands. He wanted to get up, wanted to get this whole sordid business over with, but had that feeling one gets when one hasn't the energy to move. Something occurred to him.

_Which thoughts are mine?_

He sighed. _That's stupid. Why are you thinking this? You just thought that you could think 'Hello' and something would answer back? This _is_ your own mind we're talking about. _

_Besides, you're nearly done! Then, no more worrying and looking over your shoulder every second. No more running and trying to second guess yourself. No more speed-chess. Once you open the Lock, you can…_

_You can die. _

Russ blinked. It was true, wasn't it? That was what he wanted more than anything.

_I don't want to kill myself. But, I'm just so tired, so tired…_

He really was tired. He wanted to fall asleep as he sat there, fall asleep and never wake up.

_You haven't slept in forty years. And it hurts, doesn't it. _

_You don't have to kill yourself. Just disable the age inhibitors they installed, and live out the rest of your life, the way you should have forty years ago. But first, finish this business, and be done with everything. _

Russ's eyes drooped, but he couldn't make himself drop off. He'd heard some humans could do this, could fall asleep anywhere, but he required low temperatures, low temperatures the traitorous implant near his spine prohibited.

_Bedtime stories_

The memory stung. Russ didn't want to remember, didn't want to think about it, but before he could stop himself -

_Bedtime stories, short tales about the things that lurked in the night, and terrors until he wanted to hide curled in a burrow somewhere, and never come out. But, always through it, there was hope. There was the god his big, strong dad had travelled with, the one that fought monsters and quelled nightmares with his shining box and his little device – not a weapon of war but a tool, an instrument, a forger of peace. The god that had fallen from the sky. Time and time again, they'd succeeded against things that little Russ had never thought they'd escape, much less defeat. And Russ's dad would come home as often as he could, to tell about his newest adventures. But then…_

_Stop it. Don't think about that. It hurts too much. _

But, the memories flooded through like an avalanche, like the waters behind a great dam that had finally begun to crack.

_But then, one day he didn't come home-_

_Stop that!_

_-and there had been an explosion of lightning-_

_No!_

_-and all that was left was a great lake of glass in the woods. Sand gets everywhere. Eventually, the water went away, and the forest died, and even the glass disappeared beneath the sands. The desert covered everything. _

_Do not dare disobey me!_

_The desert always covers everything, and in the end, there was nobody to remember, not even me because I never knew what happened, really happened, in the end to my father, and that's why I say _NO_, I will _not_ put the Doctor in the harness. _

_But what use is he to you now, dead? _

That brought Russ up short. He stared at the body before him. His fingers flexed without his realizing it.

_I've killed someone. I've killed the Doctor, the Helper. _

_There's no hope, no help coming now. _

Russ felt the colour drain from his face. He'd just killed someone. No, more than that. He'd just killed the one person he needed above all else, the only person who could help him. He couldn't even move.

And yet, he did. Slowly, haltingly, his legs shifted and his arms pushed himself up, up, off the floor, against the wall, scraping up it like some great, injured beast.

_No! Get out of my head!_

But now, the voice was smooth, like a snake's tongue, and the feeling it left as it slthered through his head was unpleasantly cold.

_I have control now. The Portal must open. _

He was walking now, slowly at first, but with more and more confidence. He reached down, and, with more strength than he thought he ever possessed in his body, hefted the larger man onto his shoulder. Russ's muscles screamed in protest.

_What was your plan, then, little one? You wished to defy me? And, perhaps, you wanted your precious Doctor to save you? To realize what was going on? Do you not realize that even many of your ideas were my own? I have defeated you, and I will return. _We_ will return. You cannot stop us. _

Russ's mind was too filled with pain to come up with anything coherent. He only watched in terror as his arms disobeyed his commands and strapped the Doctor's limp body into a harness, and tightened all the straps. Then, he went over to the main controls and-

_-and nearly got motor control back_. His hand shook terribly, and sweat beaded itself on his forehead. Both sides struggled for dominance. He bit his tongue, hoping to connect to the feeling and thus strengthen his connection to his own body. It seemed an eternity that he stood there, shaking.

His hand moved slowly over to the controls, and Russ slammed it with all the strength in his body as he wrestled psychically for control of his body.

The fingers clenched into a fist, and his hand moved back toward him.

Then, abruptly, the battle was over. Russ took a deep breath, and smiled in not an altogether nice way. He took a quick look at the palm of his hand. Deep purple bruises had already formed on the palm. He wiped his hand on his shirt. Then, he worked the controls. He glanced upwards with his jet black eyes, and let them rest for a moment on the spot the Doctor had occupied moments before.

"_Damn!_" the thing-that-was-not-Russ roared in a deeper, more resonant voice, and pounded the console before him.


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor had been frankly surprised when he woke up. Russ was over by the computer console, locked in some sort of mental battle. The Doctor really wanted to hit himself on the head. He should have guessed there was something else behind Russ's strange little plan.

Actually, he did guess, or, at least, he had suspected, but he hadn't acted on it until it was too late.

He reached up and yanked on the little buckles holding him fast. He wasn't sure how much more time Russ could buy him – it looked as if his bones would break from the strain.

His fingers weren't very nimble, but he still managed to undo a few of the straps and, sensing the mental battle was nearly at an end, he slithered ungracefully out of the harness and flopped over behind some equipment. While there, he pulled the little staser dart out of his chest and tasted the end.

Acetylsalicylic acid, but in tiny amounts. Not nearly enough to kill him. Interesting.

"_Damn_" roared the thing inside Russ's body. There was a bit of a clinking sound.

_Staser clip. He's reloading the nasty stuff_, thought the Doctor. _I'd better move._

He flexed his fingers, first one hand, then the other. They weren't very responsive, but he was getting better. He absolutely couldn't feel anything below his knees, and everything above there to his thighs was pins and needles, so he decided not to risk standing up or crawling yet.

He pulled his body painfully toward the portal, and dragged his legs so that he was quite hidden. Nearby, he heard the small and unmistakable sound of a small needle hitting the wall. There were two more small noises. _Three_, the Doctor thought, then, _What's the point of counting shots? How do I know how many he has in a clip?_

He pulled one of the bolts out of the wall and sniffed it. Yes, this was the nasty stuff. These were 100% genuine staser bolts.

The Doctor thought a moment, and pulled a cricket ball out of his pocket. He threw it toward the opposite wall. Without even checking to see where it had landed, he scooted around some cables and squeezed his legs tight against him. He could feel the pins and needles in his toes now. That was good. They really hurt, and that was bad.

He could hear the sound of Not-Russ making his way toward the ball, so the Doctor dragged himself toward the door. The drag morphed into a sort of crawl, as he realized he could use his legs to some extent now. He fumbled for his sonic screwdriver.

A cricket ball hit his elbow. A clear dart impaled it through the middle. The Doctor looked up.

Not-Russ smiled at him and licked his teeth. They were small and pointed, and his eyes were pitiless and filled with sadistic mirth.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: i am currently posting this from my mobile so i beg forgiveness for any typeos and such.**

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><p>The Doctor hit the button on his screwdriver at the same time Not-Russ pulled the trigger. Behind him, the portal machine exploded in a spray of sparks and electricity, knocking the Kelian (and whatever was in his body) to the ground. The staser bolt struck the ceiling, but the Doctor rolled violently over anyways. There wasn't any telling where those things would end up.<p>

"No!" cried Not-Russ. He tried to pick himself up, but the Doctor threw himself at him and, with much effort and concentration, gained enough temporary motor control over his legs to kick the gun away.

With an inhuman (Ha, the Doctor thought) strength, Russ shoved the Doctor off of him and went for the gun. But, the screwdriver was out, and the Doctor hit the precious button, and suddenly Not-Russ arched his back and curled his lips back in a silent scream. He collapsed. The Doctor had targeted his neural implant.

The Doctor dragged himself painstakingly over to Russ's prone form and rolled him over. He changed the frequency of his screwdriver, and pressed the blue tip against Russ's neck. Then, he looked at his sonic and slurred something that came out like "rrnewowoughowuouoooo", or some similar assortment of random vowels and consonants, but was meant to mean "No! No, no, no, no, no!"

The Doctor rolled Russ onto his back once more, and worked with the screwdriver more fervently than ever before, but he knew it was too late.

Whoever had taken over Russ had taken something from him when he left. Russ's face relaxed and he shut his eyes and seemed to sigh, asleep at last.

The Doctor pounded the floor. "No!" he slurred again. His teeth kept getting in the way. "sssshshhhnnnnough" he managed.

Then, he too collapsed and didn't move again until the sun had gone down and the moon shone high overhead.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Ok. I think that pretty much concludes my first major story! As always, reviews are welcome. It's sort of sad that Russ had to die, especially how I liked him so much, but it just sort of fit. That was the direction the story was always headed, and that was the direction I wanted to take it. When I started writing, to be honest, I assumed Russ would live. Because Everybody Lives, Rose! It's the way things ought to work. But, when I actually sat down to write the chapter, this is the way it came out, and this is the way it's going to be. I may add a short epilogue later. And it's depressing, because I did like Russ, and his death didn't really serve a point except to make the poor Doctor's life a little more miserable (this is the Doctor from just after Planet of the Dead. He's kind of wasting time before he goes off to Waters and then from there, directly into the End of Time). **


	13. Next Time

**Next Time:**

Adrian sat with his sketchbook and drew. Diane was bound to be home any minute now, and he wanted to surprise her with flowers, and, if she took long enough, a nice pencil drawing of a couple houses on her lot. Then, they'd go off and get something nice to eat, and he'd sing 'Happy Birthday' for her – she always said she liked his voice – and she'd open up the little gift he got her, and her eyes would light up the way they always did when she was pleasantly surprised, the way that made her look so amazingly beautiful, and he'd take her in his arms…

Adrian always sketched automatically. It was as if his eyes connected directly to his pencil. Diane loved his drawings. She had several pinned up in her room.

Adrian sighed. He liked it here. The grass was green and newly cut, and gave off a sweet scent into the air. There was a gentle breeze, and the sun shone, and warmed his back as he sat and drew and daydreamed. There was something about the waiting for something, some inexplicable quality that died when the expectation was fulfilled. But, now, Adrian could sit and bask in the sweet anticipation. And, overhead, the sun shone, and the earth moved, and the stars, hidden by the afternoon sun, continued their slow dance through the heavens. Moments don't last. They come and are gone forever, and thus are things to be treasured. Never again, Adrian mused, would he sit on this bench and wait to take his lovely girlfriend out for her twenty-third birthday, and feel this same breeze on his face and this same sun on his arms, and sketch this same portrait. He tried to capture this feeling of the treasured moment in the image.

The image depicted Diane's pristine white house next to a strange, dilapidated monstrosity. It looked like the strange, funhouse mirror version of a building that had been taken apart and fit back together wrong. No, it looked like several buildings stitched together by Escher, or, perhaps, Salvador Dali. There was a sideways door, and a couple of little lantern-like protrusions, and enormous seams where the thing didn't quite fit together. Shingled sections curved and fit into areas of brick. It looked as if the roof – a curved mass made of nearly the same material as the rest of the thing, had been split several ways and pasted in all directions. There were little white windows made up of many pieces of white glass that could have once been rectangular before whatever distorted the structure affected them. And there were white rectangular splotches all over the thing. And there was a bit of shading over one of the windows.

Adrian looked quickly back up at his source. The strange building was nowhere to be found. There was Diane's house, number twelve, and the next house over.

Actually, it was a bit odd that the next house over was number sixteen. The buildings were most certainly directly adjacent. Perhaps the planning committee had some strange oversight. The houses on this side of the street were even-numbered, and fourteen was suspiciously missing.

Adrian glanced down at his drawing, and then back up at the place between numbers twelve and fourteen. There wasn't anything there…

Except, there sort of was. It was a difficult call, but his eye caught some blue aspect. He eyeballed the alleyway. Nothing.

He glanced back at his drawing, and, once again, there was that hint of blue, and the faint ocular taste that perhaps the space between the houses was actually greater than a metre or two.

Intrigued, Adrian swiped his eyes quickly across the space between the two buildings. There was most certainly something big and blue in there, but when he stared hard at where the blue thing should have been, it clearly had never been there.

He glanced off to the side, didn't see the blue as much as he felt the blue, the taste or smell that is fundamental blueness without the visual confirmation, but, before it went, he latched onto it, held it tightly to him like something dear to his heart, and reeled it in.

It took a few tries, a few blurry swipes across the houses with his eyes, but, eventually, he saw it, and wondered how he could have ever missed it. The thing was a giant blue mass, easily the size of Diane's house. If he wondered how the thing could have fit in the alleyway, his head hurt. It didn't make sense, spatially. Actually, given the fact that the entire thing was distorted in ways unkind to the eye, the whole thing was one enormous spatial illogicality. Adrian didn't know what to make of it.

He blinked. As suddenly as it had been there, the thing was gone. No, no, it was still there. It just took a new try at glancing again and again in order to catch it with the eyes once more. Adrian was getting good at this.

Confident in his ability to find the building again, he turned once more to his drawing. Sketching isn't merely drawing what one sees. It's taking the world, filled with doors and houses and faces and clothing and automobiles that it is, and turning it into an arrangement of shape and shade and colour. It isn't seeing so much as it is looking.

Adrian realised the white rectangles weren't just pure white rectangles. They had a patterning on them – no, they had writing on them. He squinted at his drawing, since it wouldn't go away once he blinked. And there were other words on the thing too. Actually, it all seemed to be the same message, repeated over and over again, but in various stages of distortion. As near as he could gather, the words said:

Police Public Call Box

He realised what the shading over the window was. It was a hand and a face. He was very well familiar with both, distorted as they were, into a rictus of terror. It belonged to Diane.


End file.
